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What in the story should make the PCs choose to explore the Catacombs of Wrath before just charging off to Thistletop after reading Tsuto's journal?
I have a group of players who are famous for making whatever decision is most inconvenient for me and for furthering the plot.
Thanks.
Underemphasize the fact the journal talks about an army of abominations under the town and how Tsuto was trying to convince the quasit to attack at the same time as the goblins. Something like "oh, and it mentions something about an army of abominations under the town, but I'm sure you're not interested in that just yet."
Thank you. Both are good suggestions. I just felt that there wasn't a particularly strong story hook that would make the PCs choose to explore the Catacombs before Thisteltop.
What in the story should make the PCs choose to explore the Catacombs of Wrath before just charging off to Thistletop after reading Tsuto's journal?
I have a group of players who are famous for making whatever decision is most inconvenient for me and for furthering the plot.
Thanks.
Have Tsuto escape into the tunnels below - even if he doesn't head into the catacombs, its very likely the PC's will pursue him there. Alternatively, once Hemlock is made aware of the evidence, he could request that they do so. The Catacombs can even be explored after Thistletop - just add in a few more sinspawn to make the fight challenging enough.
I had the town guard try to secure the smuggler tunnel, and they lost several men left to monitor the broken down wall. Since the Sheriff was still out of town, and the guy he left in charge isn't particularly experienced, he asked the party to investigate.
Excellent option.
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Worst case, I think you could skip it. They are likely to get that same 'there is something nasty under Sandpoint' feeling when the sinkhole hits.
I am trying to remember whether or not there's anything about Burnt Offerings that's actually essential to the metaplot, and I am coming up short.
So long as they care about the people in the town, your plot should flow fine. Now you may have XP or CR issues... but those are fixable too.
Hopefully unnecessary to say it, but extensive Burnt Offerings-spoilers ahead:
In my play-through Hemlock asked the party to stay in Sandpoint and be visible for a few days while he traveled to Magnimar, requested some new guards, and traveled back with the guards in question. Shalelu was out scouting to find out which of the local goblin tribes was responsible for the attack. In the meantime the party rescued Ameiko and "didn't have anything else to do" while staying in town, so they decided to explore the Catacombs straight away.
As others have mentioned, having a Sinspawn wander into town would probably catch their attention in a hurry.
If the party puts guards on the tunnel and leave it at that I'd start making those guards disappear.
Elyrium has at-will invisibility and the slumber hex as well as various witch spells, it wouldn't be very hard for her to kidnap a few guards and leave them (or just pieces of them) scattered all over the catacombs.
Finally, keep in mind that Thistletop is HARD for a 2nd level party. If your party (against all reason) decides to skip the catacombs and go there first, you should scale back on the encounters there. The bridge in particular is very lethal to 2nd level characters, and Gogmurt played intelligently isn't far behind.
Have Tsuto escape into the tunnels below - even if he doesn't head into the catacombs, its very likely the PC's will pursue him there. Alternatively, once Hemlock is made aware of the evidence, he could request that they do so. The Catacombs can even be explored after Thistletop - just add in a few more sinspawn to make the fight challenging enough.
Was going to do this, but one of the PCs got a Greataxe critical on him when he was almost at his breakpoint for morale. As a result, he never got a chance to flee, and all they got from him was the journal which seems to indicate Thistletop being the bigger threat. The session ended on that, so I have a week to decide how to handle this.
Best I can think of is to have them tell the town guard about the journal, then have a couple guards go down to investigate, but not come back. But the problem is this takes time, and if the party charges off to Thistletop immediately, like it seems they will, I don't know how to keep them from doing so.
Otherwise, I could try to have the sinspawn attack, but I'm not sure how to ensure they piece together the sinspawn to the Catacombs.
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Tsuto went down about as quick in my game. They approached the Glassworks from the supply room entrance, which meant the goblins had to either flee through the party, or all the way around the room. Tsuto was initially caught unawares, but they poked around in the room next to his long enough for him to grab his bow, leap out into the hallway, and kick the elven fighter in the head. When he realized his goblins weren't coming to reinforce, he had to leap through the party to make it to the escape tunnel, but they were able to bring him down before he got too far.
My group was also initially ready to run off to Thistletop, but I was fortunate enough to have them show the journal to Kendra Deverin (the party's wizard is her cousin, after all!). She immediately latched onto the section that said that there was a quasit and some freaky things beneath the city, and she wanted to know what. Rather than send untested guards into an unknown situation, she asked the Heroes of Sandpoint to look into it.
That's probably the easiest way - what did your group do with the journal? If they showed it to anyone, they can suggest taking it to someone of importance, and those authorities can ask the group to take care of whatever's lurking beneath Sandpoint before heading off to Thistletop.
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For whatever reason, my PCs didn't want to have anything to do with the catacombs. Tsuto got away and ran down the tunnel, but they were more concerned about getting Ameiko back to the Rusty Dragon and taken care of than pursuing someone who was "clearly long gone, anyway."
Then, in reading the journal, they made the Nualia and Thistletop connections, but didn't "get" the references to the quasit under the town being in the tunnel. They decided they needed to collapse the tunnel just inside the entrance, so that it was taken care of for good.
They weren't ready for Thistletop yet, and I wanted them to encounter the references to Thassilon before they got there. So after having Ameiko subtly attempt several times to convince them to check it out, I got heavy handed.
One of the PCs is a haunted oracle (seer) with the time mystery. He plays his curse as being not so much haunted, as partially out of sync with time...sometimes his gear slips out of the "now" and it takes him longer to retrieve it, etc. So while they were headed to get permission to collapse the tunnel entrance, I had him slip momentarily into the future and see the group standing before a giant sink hole with Hemlock, who was saying "The sink hole opened up the catacombs. I sent a team of men to investigate...but they haven't returned. That was three days ago."
It's cheesy, I know, but it killed two birds with one stone...it let them know something was down there and made them think that if they went forward with their plan they would collapse part of the town, while neatly foreshadowing the ACTUAL sink hole.
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Not a bad solution, Ollie! It's not often you get to do a call-forward in an RPG. I think your solution works very well - after all, this scene will happen, just not the way your players think it will. That way, when your party gets to that part of the story, they'll recognize that this is what you were setting up all those months ago.